Wednesday, 16 December 2009

Frank Davis has some superb articles pointing out similarities between the outrageous lies sleight of hand used by the anti-smoking theocracy, and the inherent scaremongery and hyperbole surrounding climate change.

He's not the only one to link the two. An article in doctor's journal the Lancet (you remember doctors, they're the ones who used to fix you when you are ill but now preach politics and righteous prohibition instead) has come to the same conclusion.

Climate change can be compared to passive smoking because those who generate the damage are not the same people as those who suffer (in the case of tobacco) or the same country (in the case of climate change)

Additionally, they have thus far both failed to throw up a single verifiable casualty, but are useful tools in attracting research grants ... for articles in the Lancet by doctors dabbling in politics, for example.

There are many similarities between tobacco use and climate change. In addition to causing huge damage to population health, both cause substantial adverse social, economic, equity, and gender effects. Both have long lead times between cause and effect, and both require long-term policies and monitoring systems.

Obviously that will be expensive, but hey, we've got degrees and everything. You can trust us to spend it wisely.

The number of countries implementing the policies effectively is far too low.

It's true because we said it. We're doctors, doncha know.

Negative effects are increasing over time and will have greatest effects in low-income countries and poor populations.

Political will and strong leadership are required for both areas: implementing effective tobacco control policies has taken decades and is far from complete. Additional funding to support action in low-income countries is in the interest of all.

While we're grateful for the cash you bung our way, we could do with more. How much? Well, how much have you got?

The main lesson from tobacco for the Copenhagen conference is that delay in agreeing on international policy and poor implementation will cost countless lives. We must act now in the interests of future generations.

7 comments:

I wrote to the author Maria Nilsson about tobacco and climate, here is an extract.

However on passive smoking we will be arguing into most of 2010. There have been over 80 studies done into LC and passive smoking, 16% suggest a statistically significant risk, 14% suggest it is protective and the other 70% are statistically insignificant. Hardly damning evidence. Like climate change it gets scientists funding, jobs and influence just like tobacco control. There are scientists who even put their hands up to misleading people.

" Yes, it's rotten science, but it's in a worthy cause. It will help us to get rid of cigarettes and become a smoke-free society" so said Alvan Feinstein, Yale University epidemiologist writing in Toxological Pathology in 1999 on passive smoking.

My next point is a fellow academic in Sweden Robert Nilsson who works at the Department of Genetic and Cellular Toxicology, Stockholm University, Sweden. robertn@kemi.se should you want to contact him for confirmation. Here is a paper he wrote, sorry it is quite long.

However, in most of these studies, many of the most common confounding risk factors were ignored and there appears to be insufficient evidence to support an association between exposure to ETS and CHD. Further, it seems highly improbable that exposure to a concentration of tobacco smoke at a level that is generally much less than 1% of that inhaled by a smoker could result in an excess risk for CHD that-as has been claimed-is some 30% to 50% of that found in active smokers.

Here is a wonderful thought. "Let those who gained financial from the promotion of subprime mortages pay back the menetary gains that they made. Let all those who made money in bonuses in these transsactions repay".

Obviously, such a thought is not possible to actually achieve. But, one might ask, why should people who did not gain from the machinations of Bankers pay for these people's cock ups?

I am a tax-payer. I did not gain from the manipulation of the money markets. Why am I paying my money to these manipulators?

It ought to be an objective of our government to bancrupt these manipulators. But, what is the most important thing is that the people who made millions should have to repay to THE PEOPLE.

Since CRUgate, I've been hoping that someone who's had the foresight to keep and organise the ETS studies would highlight the parallels between the two. Thank you DaveA and Frank Davis! Might someone like Tom Uttley be interested in exposing this in the MSM?

Re cure for cancer, I heard yesterday that they're heralding a breakthrough in understanding of lung cancer although I didn't hear enough to make sense of it, only that the reason that smoking is such a villain because with each cigarette something significant happens...

Jay, I saw the item in the independent on-line today. The press release is based on results from a patient with lung cancer having multiple gene mutations. A patient, no comparisons with a non-smoker with lung cancer, or a smoker without lung cancer or anything else that might be construed as an adequate contol. I pointed out as much in the comments and immediately the loony brigade "smoking parents are child abusers" popped out of the woodwork. This reminded me that one of the other things that tobacco control and climate change have in common is the habit advocates of both have of simply ignoring anything they don't like coupled to an almost limitless capacity to believe, without question, whatever agrees with their own preconcieved ideas. The medical profession have forgetton what their job actually is. It is not their job to save us from ourselves, it is their job to pick up and stick together the bits when something goes wrong.